Chilly Beach after cargo floats in

Shelly Beach could be renamed “Chilly Beach” after a container of fridges has washed up on it’s shore – the contents being spilled along the sand.

The container was no longer in tact, and had been battered by the reef, spilling the fridges..

The container was one of five lost overboard on Saturday night (26th April) from the container vessel Mare Phoenicium. The vessel’s master reported that the five containers were lost at approx 1150pm whilst the ship was maneuvering through bad weather in the Sydney Heads.

The Mare Phoenicium during a spell of good weather

The vessel was travelling between Melbourne and Sydney.

The wayward container washed up on the Central Coast beach approx 50kms north of where it “jumped ship”. The remainder of the containers have not yet been located, but we have been assured that they did not contain any hazardous cargo. It is possible that they have made a new home at the bottom of the ocean, as the majority of containers lost overboard tend to do so.

Even though they have not been requested to, the locals are helping to clean up the debris that has been strewn all over the beach

The vessel operator is responsible for cleaning up the beach and removing the container.
It is expected that this should be carried out during high tide, hopefully 12.30pm today.